Park Entrance - Advice

[JeanPant]

Hello!

Typing this for the third time now; first time the forum auto-logged me out, second time I closed the browser because Steam is buggy at the moment.. so, wish me luck..

I need a some advice, tips or screenies for inspiration as to how to approach designing the bit in front of the Park Entrance.
We start off with just a path that leads to the entrance; I don't like this and want to change it.

The theme I'm going for is basically full horror, "fallen fairy" - so everything about the fairy theme, with it's flowers, and trees, and sparklies and castles .. is run down, and over-grown with vines and dark magic; witches and ghosts and demon summonings and so on.

So, let's say you have a spooky entrance (see Spoiler).. how would you approach designing the pathway to this entrance given the aforementioned theme?
A windy forest?
The hero wound his way through the Dark Forest, crows called in the distance as an oppressive mist curled and twisted around his legs. As he turned a corner, before him lay the entrance to the land of Old Camelot; fallen to witches, it's guard post over-grown with vines and vile magic. The hero pressed on...

A bridge?
"Here be witches!" The sign read; beyond, a rickety bridge spanned a deep canyon, a shallow river at it's bottom; on the other side, the entrance to the land of Old Camelot; fallen to witches, it's guard post over-grown with vines and vile magic. The hero pressed on...

What advice do you have for me? What considerations do you take into account when designing this portion of your park?

Any help, advice is welcome.

Thanks,

Spoiler

 

[Big Draco]

As your theme mentions "ruined castle(s)" why not have a ruined castle that guests have to walk through to get to the entrance? Ruined walls, overgrown with vegetation could be a good start.

You can also add ambient sounds to the wood as there are some really creepy sounds available (especially if you have a nearby coaster that triggers the sounds), not forgetting the lightning strikes and rain!

 

[KickAir8p]

What advice do you have for me? What considerations do you take into account when designing this portion of your park? Any help, advice is welcome.

Any advice? Type your post into a saved file in a text editor (Notepad works on Windows, but I like Notepad++) then paste it into the post field when you're done -- if the browser crashes you'll have a back-up. [tongue]

About the park -- sounds like you're evoking liminal space, where ordinary-world rules don't apply. One of the ways you can do that is with the position of your park entrance: put it in the middle! Guests will walk into a different world, clearly separate from whence they came. Big Draco's idea of a ruined castle is good, sculpting a giant tree (see The Great Tree career scenario) or an overgrown fairy mound would work. (My sci-fi scenario uses one example of a central entrance.)

Consider that around the entrance could easily be the most congested area of your park -- widest paths or a gridded plaza might be a good idea (with natural pathing if you don't want much human construction).

Getting beyond the entrance, I note your screenshot is nighttime -- if you haven't already, consider setting up your open/close times so your park is always night.

 

[jesric1029]

I had one idea which I haven't done yet that is very similar to yours, feel free to use it if you like.

So the idea is basically this, the name of the scenario is "Curse of Black Mountain".

The entrance to the park contains a small happy fairly village. This would be most of your gentle family rides. Just at the edge of the village the ground would turn from grass to dirt and then suddenly the rift would appear, a massive tear through the ground.

On the other side of this tear would be the other half of the village, warped into a horrifying place. The center of the town would be a mountain which grew overnight due to this curse, spawning the rift and turning half of the village evil. That second, evil part of the park would contain the thrill rides and coasters.

 

[JeanPant]

Some good advice so far, thanks everyone.